Work Text:
Varian scratches his quill against his sheet of paper. The sound of it on repeat for the past maker knows how long is really starting to drive his brain crazy, plus, his hand is beginning to cramp up.
That might be a major understatement.
His hand has been sore for the last handful of hours. He's been working on this assignment for the better part of the night, and it isn't even the last one he has. Every time he feels like he might be making a dent in his mountain of work, another request gets shoved into his face. Not that he doesn't enjoy being the royal alchemist, he really does, but he's never had this many people counting on him in his life. When he was doing his own projects, it was on his own schedule, and no one was exactly eager to ask him for extra favors on top of them.
His writing has become increasingly more sloppy, but he can't find it in himself to care. The sooner he gets this portion done, the sooner he can move on. As long as he keeps on keeping on, he'll get it done eventually. These specific assignments, anyway. Of course there'll be a thousand more to come afterwards, and he's going to get stuck working through the night over and over until the day he dies.
He can feel himself getting emotional as he accidentally misspells a word in his writing, quickly scratching it out and restarting. He's probably just sleep deprived. Everyone has to work, this is what he signed up for. No one else would be having this much of a hard time writing.
He accidentally scuffs the paper slightly too hard, causing it to tear as his quill slips. The force is strong enough to rip up multiple lines. He lets out a loud groan, aggressively shoving the paper and quill off his desk and onto the floor, along with anything else anywhere in vicinity of them. He drops his head onto the desk in defeat, tears welling in his eyes. He folds his arms around his head, covering his ears. Maybe it's childish to have a mental breakdown over a ripped paper, but no one else is here to witness it.
There's suddenly a faint knocking at his door. It's not unusual for people to pop their heads in to check on him when he's in the lab late. Usually he's able to tell who's knocking by the way they do it, but he can't bring himself to think hard enough about it. When he doesn't respond, the door opens quietly.
"Varian? Are you asleep?" Rapunzel asks in a hushed tone.
"No." He replies, trying to ignore how strained his voice sounds. He cringes as he hears her feet padding against the stone floor before taking a seat next to him on the bench.
"I think you knocked a few things over." She says lightly. Varian huffs a laugh, not bothering to lift his head.
A few silent moments pass before Rapunzel speaks again.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
She always seemed to know how he was feeling without him even having to speak. It was nice, but the fact that he could never really brush her off was slightly mortifying.
"I don't know, it was stupid." He mumbles.
"You're allowed to be upset Varian, it doesn't mean the reason is stupid."
"Yeah, you don't know what it is." He replies with a snort.
"Wanna tell me?"
"I don't even know. I was just thinking about how much work I still have to do, then my brain wouldn't shut up about how I'm going to be feeling like this for the rest of my life and it just-" He cuts himself off with a puff of air. "I love my job, I'm just being dramatic."
Rapunzel hums thoughtfully.
"You know, I was so ecstatic to start my princess duties after my coronation, but at some points, everything just felt so heavy. There were so many expectations of me, like people assumed I was born with the knowledge of how to be a princess." She chuckles halfheartedly. "Don't get me wrong, I loved it more often than not, but I always found myself feeling overwhelmed when I was pushing myself too hard to be what I thought people wanted me to be."
"Yeah, but you had every right to feel like that, you were practically dropped into that life. I chose this job, I've been doing this since I could walk."
"But there's a new factor now, there are other people involved. That can be a lot to handle."
"Everyone with a job has people relying on them, I'm not a special case." He retorts sourly.
"Varian, can you look at me?"
Varian slowly uncovers his head, instead placing his arms underneath to lean on. He turns to look at Rapunzel, who has a painfully sincere look on her face. He feels guilt slosh in his stomach.
"You're allowed to get overwhelmed. No matter how much you like your work, nothing can feel perfect all the time, that's life. What's not okay is to shove those feeling away when you need a break. I know you are well a head of schedule, everyone will be okay if you get a good night's sleep and take some time off, trust me." She smiles, brushing away a strand of hair from where it's clung to stray tears on his cheeks.
"What's the point in taking a break if this is just gonna happen again?" He mutters, rubbing his eyes.
"I think everything feels extra hard right now because you haven't slept." She says with a sympathetic frown. "Once you're well rested, and I mean a lot more than three hours of sleep, we can figure out how to make your work load feel less debilitating."
Varian takes a few seconds to process everything before nodding his head blearily. He slowly sits up right before pushing himself up using the desk. He looks down at the clutter of different things on the ground.
He probably needs to organize his things better.
"My paper is still ruined." He chuckles tiredly as they leave the lab, shutting the light off on their way out.
"I'm sure it's fixable." Rapunzel replies certainly.